Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites
Coverage of Sept. 23 Events Focused on Saving Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Posted in CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), September 23rd Commemorations
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Chief Rabbi of South Africa Calls on Lithuania’s Leaders to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Jewish Cemetery
OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | USCPAHA | CPJCE | ADMAS KODESH
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JOHANNESBURG—The Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, today added his voice to the international Litvak and wider opposition to state-sponsored desecration of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt in the form of a national convention center surrounded by Jewish graves going back half a millennium in Vilna, the city once known as Jerusalem of Lithuania. The office of the chief rabbinate made public his letter to Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda and prime minister Saulius Skvernelis.
A PDF of his letter is available here, and follows below. Please use handles in the upper left-hand corner to turn pages.
Chief Rabbi of South Africa on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), South Africa
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Piramont (Snipiskes) Jewish cemetery, Rabbi Warren Goldstein, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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Schedule of September 23rd 2019 Events on Lithuania’s Holocaust Day, in Plea for Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
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VILNIUS—The following is the schedule for today’s events organized by Mr. Dov-Ber and Mrs. Chaya Fried of New York City in cooperation with the Vilnius Committee for Preservation of the Piramónt Jewish Cemetery (chaired by Julius Norwilla) and the European Foundation for Human Rights (represented by attorney Evelina Dobrowolska). The first event, at twilight, is on a ridge above the cemetery, moderated by Rabbi Yehuda Genut. The second, more formal, seminar is at the nearby Marriott Hotel, moderated by Mrs. Chaya Fried.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), September 23rd Commemorations
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This Year’s Sept. 23 Events Remembering Holocaust to Include Pleas for the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt
Monday September 23 in Vilnius
Day of Prayer and Respectful Challenge to Spare Old Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Šnipiškės) from Plans to Site a Convention Center in its Heart
September 23rd is Lithuania’s Holocaust Commemoration Day. It is because of the Holocaust that there are almost no local descendants of the many thousands of buried there to stand up for the dignity and integrity of ancestors’ graves. This is a matter of human and minority rights: it would not be happening to a five-hundred year old cemetery of the majority population. It would not happen in the west of the European Union, and must not happen in its east, whose peoples deserve the same standards of equal rights and human dignity. Cheering at conventions, drinking at bars and flushing toilets surrounded on all four sides by extant graves is not human dignity. Vilnius deserves better for the years and generations to come.
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All welcome! Major Litvak rabbis and scholars will be flying in for the one-day event among them Rabbi Asher Arielli, Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, Rabbi Orin Reich, and Rabbi Yaakov Shapira . Local speakers include Vilnius Jewish Community head Simon Gurevich and Lithuanian philosopher Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas. Coordinated by Julius Norwilla, chair of the Vilnius Committee for the Old Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, in cooperation with the European Foundation for Human Rights, whose appeal before the Vilnius courts is now supported by 235 affidavits, including the Elyashiv, Finkel, Levine, Segal, Shternbruch & Soloveitchik families. Established by Dov-Ber and Chaya Fried.Continue reading
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, September 23rd Commemorations
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“Serious Incident Report” to UK’s Charity Commission over London CPJCE’s Grave Dealings in Vilnius
OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | USCPAHA | CPJCE | ADMAS KODESH
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CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—The following is the text of the complaint that was filed with the UK Charity Commission by Stone King solicitors here, a firm specializing in the righting of alleged corruption by charitable organizations recognized by the commission concerning. The “Serious Incident Report”, as these are known in the UK, includes the following text:
“Put simply it is alleged that this Charity [CPJCE—“Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe”], in collaboration, for payment, to the further destruction through development of the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery in the Snipiskes district of the modern Vilnius, the Capital of Lithuania (See Lithuania liveliest Cemetery” in The Times of Israel, 13.12.15). This proposed development has been met with universal protest and condemnation by the international Jewish Community. This includes an international petition which currently contains 45,000 signatures, a letter from 12 Congressmen, oppositions from the 12 greatest Lithuanian origin rabbis and a letter from Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites to the President of Lithuania dated 1.2.18. We set below for ease of reference a list of hyperlinks which demonstrates the scale of opposition.”
Posted in CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, United Kingdom
Tagged Committee for Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe, CPJCE, Jewish cemetery Piramont, Jewish cemetery Snipiskes, Vilna Jewish cemetery
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Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to be Shamed Again This Weekend as Soviet Dump is Glorified
OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | USCPAHA | CPJCE | ADMAS KODESH
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VILNIUS—In a shock both to human rights activists here and the small but vibrant Jewish community, the “Open House Vilnius” project of the NGO “Architektūros fondas”, in partnership with M. K. Čiurlionis House and Museum is organizing a major event this coming weekend to feature an “audio-visual installation by the composer Vytautas Paukštelis”. The event is being sponsored by European Union taxpayer euros via the EU’s “Creative Europe and European Music Paths” program.
“The Ghosts of Vilna Will Not be Silenced” (by Vulovak for DefendingHistory)
The problem? It is being staged right smack in the middle of the Old Vilna Jewish at Piramónt (in today’s Šnipiškės district, Shnípeshok in Yiddish). In fact, the staging could not be some kind of clerical error resulting from lack of being informed. For years now, there has been an international (and local!) movement beseeching the Lithuanian government and its state-owned Turto bankas, and the City of Vilnius, to move the convention center project away from the old Jewish cemetery, so that it might be lovingly restored, as, for example, per the Frankfurt model, and become an international site that will attract people from around the world, instead of a mark of racism and antisemitism in the city that was once the “Jerusalem of Lithuania” and even today uses that phrase for marketing and PR.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged human rights in Lithuania, Jewish cemetery at Piramont (Snipiskes, Old Vilna (Vilnius) Jewish cemetery
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European Foundation for Human Rights Takes Desecration of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to Court
OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | USCPAHA | CPJCE | ADMAS KODESH
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VILNIUS—The European Foundation for Human Rights has today filed a lawsuit with the District Court of Vilnius City. The following is the full text of a press release issued by the group this morning, which appears on its website:
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Piramont Jewish cemetery, Ruta Bloshtein, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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Did USCPAHA’s (and AZM’s, and GWF-LJHF’s) Point Man on Old Vilna Cemetery Flip Yet Again?
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | USCPAHA | HERBERT BLOCK’S POSITIONS ON THE SUBJECT | CPJCE | ADMAS KODESH
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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Herbert Block, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged Admas Kodesh, AZM (American Zionist Movement), Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, CPJCE, Geros valios fondas (GVF), Good Will Foundation (GWF), Herbert Block, Herbert Block + AZM, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Marjorie Margolies, Piramont cemetery in Vilnius, Snipiskes Jewishcemetery, USCPAHA
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Lithuania’s Gov. “Property Bank” is Using “Weak and Divided” Jewish Reaction to Proceed with “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery” Project
OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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by Julius Norwilla
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As “the day of the bulldozers” nears, Lithuania’s state “Property Bank” (Turto Bankas, often translated “Asset Bank”) is coming close to announcing the final contracts for the planned Convention Center in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, in today’s Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius. The derelict Soviet building slated for conversion (alongside construction of a large annex) is surrounded on all four sides by many thousands of Jewish graves left untouched by the Soviet authorities who pilfered all the stones for building works and ballast. There has been massive international opposition, including Lithuanian-origin rabbinical authorities worldwide, in addition to a petition started by Vilnius resident Ruta Bloshtein that is close to 46,000 signatures at the time of writing.
Julius Norwilla’s impressions after a meeting with the leaders of Lithuania’s state Property Bank now managing the convention center project in the heart of Piramónt cemetery? They are willing to talk, but they are not convinced that “the Jews themselves” really care so much. In fact, a future “talking point” for a permanently controversial and damaging “convention center” will be that “Well, they found enough Jews they could manipulate to go along with it so what do you want from us?”
The takeaway? The time for major international pressure is now. The petition has attracted more than 45,000 signatures.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion
Tagged Julius Norvila, Julius Norwilla, Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Old Vilnius Jewish cemetery, Piramont cemetery Vilnius, Snmipiskes Jewish cemetery Vilnius
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Two Visualizations of a Convention Center in the Middle of Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery
DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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“The rights of minority cemeteries to be left in peace are human rights”
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I: Lithuania’s State Bank (“Turto Bankas”) triumphantly issues its latest visualization for a national convention center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, surrounded by thousands of Jewish graves. The huge new annex is “artfully” obscured (at the back).
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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Jewish Gravestone Steps of Reformed Evangelical Church in Central Vilnius Finally Removed
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | ANTISEMITISM | CEMETERIES | HUMAN RIGHTS
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One of the stones with visible Jewish lettering stepped on for decades during its stint as a step at the front entrance of the Reformed Evangelical Church on central Vilnius’s Pylimo Street. Photo: DefendingHistory.com.
VILNIUS—More than five years after Defending History’s September 2013 article (“Where You Have to Step on Old Jewish Gravestones to go to Church”), almost four years after Julius Norwilla’s May 2015 impassioned plea (“A Protestant Pastor in Vilnius Speaks Out About Church Steps Still Made of Pilfered Jewish Gravestones”), and almost five since Genrich Agranovski’s 2014 survey (“The Stones Tell Me. After All, They Lived Here”) of Jewish gravestones pilfered for public space in Vilnius, the steps were finally removed last week in the face of mounting international pressure.
See Defending History reports over the years on the Jewish gravestones at the Reformed Evangelical Church in Vilnius
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Reformed Evangelical Church (Vilnius)
Tagged Jewish cemeteries in Europe, Jewish cemetery in Liithuania, Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, Jewish gravestonees as steps, Jewish gravestones as paving stones, Reformed Evangelical Church (Vilnius)
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Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery: Geotechnical Expert Group’s Press Release of Sept. 2008 is “Back in Circulation”
DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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VILNIUS—At the request of Defending History staff, several news outlets here have located and released the original 3 September 2008 press release issued by Arieh Klein, head of the Experts Group appointed to conduct geophysical and other surveys of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in today’s Šnipiškės district of Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital) to determine the boundaries of the extant cemetery underground. This was always a public document intended for the media, marked as a “press release” in accompanying emails. It is available as PDF.
The document reveals that both “new green buildings” (the King Mindaugas Buildings) that were featured in this century’s first major dispute over this cemetery, are within the boundaries of the cemetery, as are, naturally, the banks, chic cafes and restaurants, apartments and other amenities and offices on the premises.
But to this day, the buildings’ operators dismiss the geotechnical findings as “slander”. Something to remember when you next visit this part of Vilnius!
It is separately documented that truckloads of earth were clandestinely removed (and their location never disclosed), and that the builders’ and their government associates’ “bags of tricks” back then included setting up international committees with prestigious “Useful Jewish Idiots” — or UJIs — as local Jews refer informally to foreign Jewish dignitaries and professors who become part of the PR machine that is alleged to cover and deflect from various aspects of the Jewish news here. The full text of the press release follows.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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Democratically Elected Leadership of Vilnius Jewish Community Shows Consistent Moral Clarity on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery’s Fate
OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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VILNIUS—During the fiascos of recent formal visits to Lithuania by the chairperson of the US taxpayer-funded “Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad” (known for short as “USCPAHA”), a ubiquitous feature was the seemingly unending stream of photo-ops with leaders of the “official” state-sponsored Jewish community which has quite naturally supported government plans for a convention center and annex to be situated in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery. What many foreign visitors do not understand is that this enterprise does not have democratically legitimate leadership. In the middle of the last leadership election, in spring 2017, the chairperson changed the rules to disenfranchise the three thousand Jewish citizens of Lithuania in favor of a “new system” whereby “associations alone” would vote, these being the chairperson’s own board of associates. When the Vilnius Jewish Community held a very public and democratic vote, the state-sponsored official community echoed antisemitic tropes that the current Jews are some kind of Russians who say they are Jews. In November of 2018, the courts ruled her election illegal, a remarkable public demonstration followed last spring, but then, after an array of legal ruses, some quite amusing, the appeals court last month legalized her election. But not-illlegal is not moral, and being “not illegal” is a rather poor standard for Jewish and democratic legitimacy in the small and fragile post-Holocaust space. More and more people are calling for a simple solution: new and fair elections under the aegis of an outside ombudsman or polling organization, in which every Lithuanian Jewish citizen has one vote.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, Jewish cemetery Piramont, Jewish cemetery Snipiskes, Simonas Gurevicius, USCPAHA, Vilnius Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish community
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Incredibly, US Taxpayer-Funded Commission is HURTING instead of HELPING the Cause!
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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by Ruta Bloshtein
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The following is the text of the petition update posted by Ms. Bloshtein on 4 January 2019 at the Change.org site of her petition to save the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, which has exceeded the 45,000 signature mark.
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My Dear Friends,
Thanks to all of you who signed our petition, there have been various delays in the onset of works to erect a national convention center and large new annex on the site of a Soviet ruin that is right in the middle of our sacred Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, where the B’er Hagola Reb Moshe Rivkes; the Chayei Adam Reb Avrom Dantsig; Reb Menachem-Manes Chayes; Reb Boruch Romm, Reb Avrom the son of the Gaon of Vilna; Reb Yitzchok the father of Chaim of Volozhin lie buried, alongside many other thousands of Jewish citizens of Vilna (today’s Vilnius, capital of Lithuania) whose families duly paid for their plots in perpetuity. This would never happen if it were a Christian or Lithuanian national cemetery where nationally beloved figures found what was meant to be their place of rest.
Now, unfortunately, imminent danger lurks again, as the government’s own bank has just announced that building is again soon scheduled to start.
We must therefore redouble our polite and civil protests to ensure that this does not happen, that the government finds ANOTHER place for its new national convention center (that will be a pride, not a “shande” for our country), and that the cemetery can be lovingly restored as has been done in other European cities. I am sorry to report that in recent times one of the main obstacles has been the (US taxpayer funded!) “United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad” (known as “USCPAHA” for short) that exists to preserve endangered cemeteries, not to collude with foreign governments and their agents to help with excuses and cover-ups to destroy them!
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, United States, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged Jewish cemetery Snipiskes (Piramont), Paul Packer, US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, USCPAHA, Vilna Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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Israel’s Interior Minister Protests Desecration of Old Vilnius Jewish Cemetery
OPINION | ISRAEL CHRONICLE | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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JERUSALEM—In a letter dated today, and released to the media, Israel’s Minister of the Interior Rabbi Aryeh Machluf Deri appealed to the director of the Foreign Ministry to take serious action concerning the threat of desecration to the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in today’s Šnipiškės section of modern Vilnius).
The letter calls for the Foreign Ministry’s “immediate intervention” and cites the pain that would be caused to world Jewry by pursuit of the current project planned for the site.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion
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New York Daily News Covers Struggle to Preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
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NEW YORK CITY—The Sunday edition of New York’s Daily News today published a report by its crime reporter Reuven Blau on efforts to save the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery by persuading authorities to move their planned new national convention center to another venue so that the cemetery, dating to the 15th century and containing the remains of thousands of Vilna Jews over the centuries, might be lovingly restored. The article appears on the newspaper’s website, but is not accessible in various European and other countries. For readers’ convenience, a PDF follows (and can be accessed here). The focus of the article is Mr. Dov (Berel) Fried of New York, a Talmudic scholar in the grand Litvak tradition who is one of the central figures in the international coalition that has emerged to save the cemetery.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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Vulovak’s Latest Caricature in His Series on ‘The Convention Center in the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery’
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | CEMETERIES | HUMAN RIGHTS | ARTS | HUMOR (OF SORTS)
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אויך מיר אַ קאָנווענשאָן צענטער!
Oykh mir a konvenshon tsenter!
Don’t Lithuania’s citizens deserve a sparkling new convention center where they will be welcomed by leaders of the arts, entertainment, industry and statecraft, not by the ghosts of the thousands of Vilna Jewish citizens who lie buried on all four sides, in the city’s Old Jewish Cemetery, where their families purchased their burial plots in perpetuity?
by VULOVAK for Defending History
Posted in Arts, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Humor (Of Sorts), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory
Tagged Vilnius Jewish cemetery Snipiskes (Piramont)
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US Taxpayer-Funded Commission Taken to Court in DC for Helping Vilnius Builders Desecrate City’s Old Jewish Cemetery
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | USCPAHA | CPJCE
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NEW YORK CITY—A New York Institute of Technology professor of physics, Prof. Bernard Fryshman, who is also one of the world’s major advocates for the preservation of endangered minority cemeteries (he helped the US Congress draft its 2014 resolution on the subject) has teamed up with Boruch Pines, a New York based descendant of many persons buried in the old Vilna Jewish cemetery at Piramónt in the Šnipiškės (Yiddish: Shnípeshok) district of modern Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. Together, they filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on 8 November 2018. Defending History has obtained a copy of the summons and complaint, available as PDF, and below immediately following this report.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged Admas Kodesh, Bernard Fryshman, Boruch Pines, Chaim Burshtein, Chelsea Clinton, Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, Committee for Presevation of Jewish Cemeteries (London), CPJCE, Marjorie Margolies, Paul Packer, Piramont cemetery Vilnius, S.J. Feffer, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, USCPAHA
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Is Lithuania’s Department of Cultural Heritage Really Permitting a Farm, Garden & Drinking Well Inside Old Jewish Cemetery of Radvíleshik (Radviliškis)?
OPINION | CEMETERIES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH AFFAIRS | LITHUANIA
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by Evaldas Balčiūnas
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I was taken aback by the news being informally reported. “They came and they fenced off a part of the Radviliškis (Radvíleshik, Radvílishok) Jewish cemetery for themselves,” people told me. This was a well-known Jewish shtetl before the Holocaust. Without further ado I went to check it. A house and big chunk of property with it, were fenced off and for sale, clearly within the cemetery perimeter (of course with gravestones long pilfered from that section, and buried people underneath undisturbed). My photos of all parts of the cemetery are here.
FARM FOR SALE
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, Jewish heritage in Lithuania, Lithuanian Dept of Cultural Heritage, Radvileshik, Radvilishok, Radviliškis
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Can Pope Francis, in Vilnius, Heal the Blind at Lukiškės Square?
OPINION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH AFFAIRS | HISTORY | COLLABORATORS HONORED | BLAMING THE VICTIMS
by Andrius Kulikauskas
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Pope Francis’s two-day visit to Lithuania this weekend includes a symbolic stop at the Vilna Ghetto on his second day, September 23, at roughly 4 PM at Rūdininkai Square. On that day, 75 years ago, Nazi Germans liquidated the Vilna Ghetto, murdering some of its Jews in Paneriai Forest (Ponár), and moving the rest to concentration camps in Latvia, Estonia and Germany. Since 1994, it has been the National Day of Commemoration of the Genocide of Lithuania’s Jews. Now it will surely be linked in the Lithuanian psyche with this visit by Pope Francis, and perhaps some day, Saint Francis.
Pope Francis in the Lithuanian capital
However, his visit is also a chance for him to make plain to the children of God our lack of empathy for Lithuania’s Jews. A very short detour to the “Vilnius Sports Palace” — and a heavenly nod by the Pope — would let us tear down that “Soviet temple”, resurrect the holy Jewish cemetery beneath it, and enjoy a symbol of Litvak and Lithuanian friendship forever. This brings to mind the detour Jesus made in Jericho, when two blind men called out, “Lord, have mercy on us, you son of David!” And Jesus halted the crowd.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Andrius Kulikausks, Arunas Bubnys, Catholic-Jewish relations (Lithuania), Christian-Jewish relations (Lithuania), Genocide Center Vilnius, Gintaras Grušas, Jonas Noreika, Lietuvos Laisvės Kovotojų Sąjunga, LLKS, Lukiskes Square, Lukiskiu Square, Paneriai (Ponar), Piramont (Snipiskes) Jewish cemetery, Pope Francis + Jewish, Pope Francis + Lukiskiu, Pope Francis + Vilnius, Union of Fighters for Lithuania Freedom
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